This bacterium is commonly isolated from the hospital environment and hospitalized patients. It is an aquatic organism, and is often cultured from liquid medical samples such as respiratory secretions, wounds, and urine. Acinetobacter also colonizes irrigating solutions and intravenous solutions. Although it has low virulence, it is capable of causing infection. Most isolates recovered from patients represent colonization rather than infection. When infections do occur, they usually occur in the blood, or in organs with a high fluid content, such as the lungs or urinary tract. Infections by this organism are becoming increasingly problematic due to the high number of resistance genes found in clinical isolates. Some strains are now resistant to all known antibiotics. Recently, multidrug-resistant clinical isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii have been found to have a high capacity to form biofilm. It is well known that bacterial cells within biofilms are highly resistant to antibiotics, UV light, acid exposure, dehydration, and phagocytosis in comparison to their planktonic counterparts, which suggests that the cells in a biofilm have altered metabolic activity. Acinetobacter baumannii (strain 1656-2) is a clinical isolate, Gram-negative bacterium which has a high biofilm forming ability. It seems that the biofilm has a role in the persistence and tolerance of A. baumannii. (Adapted from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomeprj?Db=genomeprj&cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=42153).

Properties:

Presence of flagella:
No
Human pathogen:
Yes
Interaction:
Animal pathogen in Mammalia
Number of membranes:
2